1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a disk recording and playback apparatus, and more particularly to a head loading mechanism in a disk recording and playback apparatus.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Head loading mechanisms in conventional disk recording and playback apparatus include an electromagnetic bail energizable for turning or sliding the bail to load a magnetic head.
Use of the solenoid makes the head loading mechanism costly of necessity. The circuit of the disk recording and playback apparatus is adversely affected by noise generated when the solenoid is turned on and off. To cope with this problem, it is necessary to provide the solenoid with a shield, making the solenoid construction larger in size and more costly. Another problem is that operation of the solenoid is noisy.
Various head loading mechanisms using no solenoid have been studied, but such head loading mechanisms still suffer from problems. To meet the requirement of a higher capacity in recent years, there has been proposed a disk recording and playback apparatus having two upper and lower magnetic heads disposed in confronting relation for sandwiching a magnetic disk therebetween for recording or reproducing information. With this type of disk recording and playback apparatus, when the door to a disk insertion slot is closed with no magnetic disk inserted, one of the magnetic heads which is movable hits the other fixed magnetic head under the resiliency of a spring, causing damage to the magnetic heads and adversely affecting the recording and playback characteristics.
There is also known a disk recording and playback apparatus which does not employ two magnetic heads, but has a pad in place of the movable magnetic head as referred to above for sandwiching a magnetic disk between the pad and the fixed magnetic head. When the door to the magnetic insertion slot is closed with no magnetic disk inserted, the pad hits the magnetic disk under the resiliency of the spring. Short fibers then come off the pad and get attached to the magnetic head, adversely affecting the recording and playback characteristics.